Young Forever

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A cardigan-clad co-ed quintet from Edinburgh, Aberfeldy make
lightly folkish soft pop in a charming, old-timey style. For their
debut disc, Young Forever, the five Scots hunkered down
around a single microphone, playing their mainly acoustic
instruments - mandolin, guitar, violin, cello, glockenspiel,
percussion, organ, trombone - and singing together in pitch-perfect
harmony. But what makes the resulting record a riot is the slew of
singalong tunes penned by frontman Riley Briggs.

Sticking to those favourite subjects - love, and love lost -
Briggs has an ear for natty melody (singles Vegetarian
Restaurant and Heliopolis By Night) and can sure turn
a phrase. Check Love Is An Arrow, which is filled with
charmingly smarmy metaphors for the big L, such as "Love is a shape
that you can't divide/With an odd set of angles and uneven sides",
or the set's standout, Tie One On, an ode to drunken
forgetfulness that finds Briggs and fiddler Sarah McFadyen hitting
some high-and-tight harmonies - "You'll find me sleeping on the
lawn/Because I've been and tied one on". Sounds like a perfect
soundtrack for summer.